Happy 60th Birthday Tim Burton!

(Photo: Paramount Pictures)

August 25th is the 60th birthday of iconic film director, producer, artist, writer, and animator Tim Burton! He is known for his vision of gothic and eccentric horror as well as fantasy films such as Beetlejuice (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). He is also known for blockbusters such as the sci-fi film Planet of the Apes (2001), the fantasy drama Big Fish (2003), musical adventure Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and the fantasy film Alice in Wonderland (2010).

He once said “Movies are like an expensive form of therapy for me”, and every time Burton signs onto a new project the initial reaction is excitement for the world he is going to create. Burton regularly casts the same actors in his film projects- Johnny Depp has been in eight of his films, while Helena Bonham Carter has been in seven and Christopher Lee in six. He is responsible for creating a different dimension for film fans, with Rotten Tomatoes fans ranking Beetlejuice (1988) it’s favourite Tim Burton film with a staggering 83%, he’s done it his way, presenting filmgoers with an ever-growing list of films that turn his feeling of mis-understood into celebrating the strange!

His hard-core and dedicated fan base has grown with each project to really cement him as one of the greatest directors of our generation, on May 20 2017, a Tim Burton-themed bar named Beetle House LA opened in Hollywood, California. His eccentric flare for film is no doubt the reason why he is the eighth-highest-grossing director by worldwide box office with a staggering $4.075 billion!

Burton is currently working on the American fantasy adventure film ‘Dumbo’ loosely inspired by Walt Disney’s 1941 animated film of the same name, it stars Colin Farrell, Danny DeVito, Eva Green and Michael Keaton and is due for release in March 2019.